This is a blog about the small town of Tucker, Georgia, which is located just outside the major metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. On March 13, 2013, the residents of Tucker learned that a small group of politically motivated individuals who lived nearby wanted to incorporate using Tucker's commercial areas and leaving many of the long-time residents on the outskirts of the new city. This is the story of how the residents have fought back to preserve history and their own community.

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It seems that congratulations are in order for two of Tucker's most "upwardly mobile" residents: Ben and Sonja Szubski, active promoters of the city of Tucker effort since it started. We wanted to make sure our readers were aware of how there is a real and very serious connection between the leadership driving this city effort, and the development groups seeking to tear down and destroy (so they can then buy cheap and rebuild) what we know and love about Tucker.

First, here is the announcement from JE Dunn Construction:$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Ben Szubski Joins JE Dunn Construction as Project Manager

Press release from the issuing company
Monday, June 30th, 2014

Ben Szubski is extending his 18-year career in construction by joining JE Dunn Construction Company as a project manager, the company announced.

He is managing renovation of the building that will become JE Dunn’s new office space in the Cumberland area of Cobb County. The project is on track to qualify for LEED Gold Certification and will employ Lean Construction, BIM, Smart Use Technology and other best practices. The new offices are scheduled to open in November 2014.

Prior to joining JE Dunn, Szubski was a project manager/superintendent with Gilbane Building Company. He holds the Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree from Georgia Tech.

For reminders, we offer a look at a previous article located from a previous community, apparently, Savannah. Szubski was reportedly already married to Sonja and living in Tucker at the time he built this SPLOST funded school in Savannah. He worked for Gilbane Construction at the time.

Godley Station School taking shape

Pooler facility to serve students in pre-kindergarten through eight grade set to open Aug. 30

Savannah-Chatham Public Schools officials toured the Godley Station School construction site Monday to see how work is progressing on the education sales tax funded school scheduled to open Aug. 30.

In 2006, Chatham County voters approved a penny sales tax to generate up to $360 million to build eight new schools, retire bond debt and renovate and upgrade existing facilities. The 167,142-square-foot, two-story, pre-kindergarten through eighth grade brick school building will be the first of the newly constructed education sales tax funded schools to open.

"This is exciting," said School Board President Joe Buck, who had not visited the site since the ground breaking in March of 2009. "It's the first of many."

Project manager Ben Szubski said unusually rainy weather put construction about 60 days behind schedule, but workers have been able to make up for much of the lost time over the last four months. He's confident construction will be completed by deadline at the end of July.

"Last week, we got permanent power in the building and all the glass and glazing will be in at the end of this month," Szubski said. "We've got some big things going on."

The Godley Station School, located just west of Jimmy Deloach Parkway on Benton Boulevard, will likely cost well below the $28,172,460 budgeted for the project, according to Public Schools Operations Chief Otis Brock. It will feature a 16,000-square-foot physical education facility with a full gym, a 5,500-square-foot media center, four computer labs and two pre-kindergarten classrooms with a dedicated playground.

The school is being built to serve 1,200 students from the surrounding Pooler neighborhoods. Officials expect to enroll 850-900 the first year.

Principal Allison Schuster-Jones said she has hired about 90 percent of her staff and the teachers have already begun to meet and plan for their first year.

"We're really working to establish a warm and enjoyable environment for the students and the teachers," she said. "I want our students to feel loved and happy to optimize learning."

And, the media apparently loves Szubski (Ben, anyway) because he just so happened to be back in his modest Tucker home in July of 2013 when the big Tucker Middle School meeting took place, hosted by Elaine Boyer. If you were not there, it was likely because you were turned away at the door due to the fire department getting concerned about too many people in the building. (That's as opposed to every other day when school is in session and our buildings are all overcrowded.)

Thanks to the readily available for comment Ben Szubski, though, the opposition to having its community torn apart was put into words for Crossroads News:

Ben Szubski, another resident, said that the neighbors he has spoken with would like all of Tucker or none of Tucker included.

But not cut in pieces where the parks are taken by the Lakeside City Alliance and then in the future there's no opportunity to incorporate, Szubski said.

Gee, and look, right next to his quote, there's a quote from his neighbor Trey Scott. Who would have known that Ben's wife (Sonja) and Trey AND Trey's wife would ALL end up as the board members for Tucker 2014, working to pass a city of Tucker? What a coincidence, right? What you may not have known about Trey, however, is that he was also an employee of T-mobile at the time, a company that had recently created a huge controversy for wanting to place cell phone towers at elementary schools in the region. Here was his quote in the Crossroads News article:

Resident Trey Scott thinks the Lakeside city movement may be giving Tucker an inadvertent nudge toward its future.

Even though we've done feasibility studies on cityhood in the past (we have???) and it never got off the ground, maybe this is the catalyst that we needed, he said.

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In the meantime, this big time builder/project manager's wife has worked her way from an unknown to being in everyone's face about the city of Tucker when they were collecting money and reportedly hosting meetings, to now being the Tucker Civic Vice President.

Yes, that's right. Someone who's family income is derived mostly through construction and renovations, is in charge of looking out for Tucker residents when it comes to the zoning decisions made in our area.

Someone who thought Tucker was already a city became the President of the city movement, started a "for profit" company to take your feasibility study donations and then dropped out of the leadership role completely. She also changed jobs several times while busy advocating for a city of Tucker, so how is she now suddenly qualified to make zoning decisions for our neighborhoods?

And, just in case you were not totally certain that she was actually a big player in the entire city incorporation movement, this should do the trick (see below). It's the publically available document from the Secretary of State's website that shows Sonja Szubski listed as the CEO, CFO, SEC and Agent for Tucker 2014, which was the non-profit that supposedly is not allowed to actually lobby for or against anything or profit personally from the outcome of the charity. Not only was she the one picking up checks from people and businesses when they needed money for a feasibility study, she spoke at the hearings on the city of Tucker on behalf of 30,000 residents and has more connections to the Lavista Hills territory than she does to Tucker.

Why does this matter? Because if Tucker votes for a city, passes it and then FAILS financially, as we are being set up to do, the bulk of the city advocates live near the Lavista Hills area and will be easily annexed into their city, whenever that time comes. This is their end game. They have been working for Lavista Hills / Lakeside from the beginning and former Commissioner Elaine Boyer helped them establish themselves in the community as people whom you could trust.

You know what happened to Elaine Boyer, right? So why would we want to move forward with her pan? In fact, why are we even voting on a plan for a CITY hatched by our county commissioner in the first place? When Tucker 2014 failed in committee, it should have never been brought back to life by the Governmental Affairs Committee. They did not follow the standard process related to their duties and we can only hope that the FBI or other authority will look into it.

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